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Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

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Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#31
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is "does it cost more to certify the autopilot to do this than it does to pay for an extra two pilots", and with my understanding of aerospace costs that answer would be "very, very much yes".

I could imagine the autopilot could do a much better job. In the ideal 'zero-g' flight, you can release a ball at the start, and it should stay stationary (relative to the cabin) for the whole flight. That means the plane body must be to within a few inches of the exact perfect location in the sky 30 seconds later. I haven't flown planes, but I imagine that making sure they follow precisely a path with an accuracy of…

All the autopilots in the world aren't keeping a plane to within an inch in all three dimensions. It'd be nice, but turbulence is a thing :)

More importantly, actual position isn't that important - you care about relative acceleration being as close to 0g as you can.

And with the 3-pilot setup the A310 zero g flights have, they maintain +/- 0.02g. Now you add to that the fact that developing an autopilot you can trust in that situation costs a good chunk of money, the fact that it's a specially modified plane (so it's more or less a one-off effort), and the fact that pilot costs are negligible compared to the rest of the flight cost.

At this point, you can get a minimal increase in precision for a large expenditure up front. You'll still have the 3-pilot setup (you want to be able to recover on malfunction), so operational costs aren't reduced.

At that point, the question becomes "why would you"

Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#34
The Portuguese Space Agency (yes, there is one, Go Portugal) recently ran a competition for teens to fly with Air Zero G. Thirty kids, including my son (majority were girls), shipped out today for the Air Force base at Beja. They fly on Friday.

Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#36
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It baffles me that they need five pilots to accomplish this.

I imagine it's for an abundance of caution, as they are flying these planes way outside what their normal operations manual recommends. I assume a 320 NEO or a 737 MAX would slap the hand of the pilot if they attempted to go for a +50 degree climb and scream expletives in the voice alert system.

Well...in MS Flight Simulator, I know the voice alerts will yell at you to warn you about terrain, of if your AoA is too great ("Sink rate!").

But they don't care about high climb angles until you eventually stall.

Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could imagine the autopilot could do a much better job. In the ideal 'zero-g' flight, you can release a ball at the start, and it should stay stationary (relative to the cabin) for the whole flight. That means the plane body must be to within a few inches of the exact perfect location in the sky 30 seconds later. I haven't flown planes, but I imagine that making sure they follow precisely a path with an accuracy of…

I guess even a supercomputer would not be able to compensate for wind gust, turbulence, etc.

There isn't much turbulence, wind gusts etc. at altitude - these are more of an effect of the bumpy and uneven, alternative hot and cold surface at ground level - the bumps are usually all smoothed out by the time you are high up in the air.

(besides large storms, of course)

EDIT: Turns out there is sometimes some turbulence at altitude, caused by large mountains, storms and the jet stream - but these are all predictable and avoidable.

Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#38

Semi off topic- I'm seeing a Global Hawk and Rivet Joint doing God's work over the Black Sea. Outstanding!

Yes, it seems it's been non-stop since the beginning

yes, see i.e.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/three-british-and-american-surveil...

23 feb 2022

the surprise would be if this was NOT happening.

Re: Weightless: Parabolic flight on an A310

#40
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's for an abundance of caution, as they are flying these planes way outside what their normal operations manual recommends. I assume a 320 NEO or a 737 MAX would slap the hand of the pilot if they attempted to go for a +50 degree climb and scream expletives in the voice alert system.

Okay you just gave me a mental image of an Airbus autopilot system so angry at you it starts swearing in French. Totally agree with safety and ‘normal use case this is not’ situation.

It kind of does already: https://youtu.be/vmbzKsqKQoI#t=30s
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